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The party was founded in 1995, by a splinter group of the Progress Party (Fremskridtspartiet).[note 1] Whereas the Progress Party (PP) had been created in 1972 as a motley but somewhat libertariantax protest and quite chaotic affair, which only later took up anti-immigration, the Danish People's Party (DPP) was created to enforce strict compliance with the party line and with support for the welfare state as one of its cornerstones alongside anti-immigration[note 2] and "soft" Euroscepticism.[note 3] The DPP radically toned down the tax protest element of its PP predecessor and instead focused on freezing tax rates, though sympathetic to minor tax cuts. Other focus areas are protection of the elderly and socially disadvantaged's interests (though preferably only for "proper" Danish citizens), and a tough on crime attitude which is also linked to the DPP's anti-immigration policy by heightening moral panics about immigrant gangs.

As for being racist and far right, the DPP is racist to the extent that xenophobia and Islamophobia overlap with racism and some of its members are prone to the kind of "casual racism" that make them use such phrases as "Negro huts" ("negerhytter") when discussing development aid to Africa.[1] As for being far right, the DPP's anti-immigration and anti-Muslim policies and suggestions have become ever harsher since the party's founding as other Danish parties (from Conservatives to Social Democrats) have moved their immigration stances closer to the DPP's which has then upped the ante to further "outbid" these other parties. However, the DPP leadership has from the very beginning been extremely diligent in keeping out any white supremacy or Neo-Nazi tendencies and any member associating with such organizations is immediately excluded. The DPP was thus originally created as a socially conservative splinter group in contrast to some of its anti-immigration allies, such as the Sweden Democrats, which has its roots among the white supremacy movement, or the Norwegian Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet)[note 4] and Dutch Party for Freedom, which were originally libertarian.

The DPP is arguably the most successful political party in Denmark as, bar a slight dip in 2011, it has continuously increased its share of the vote ever since its founding to become the second-largest party in the Folketing (the Danish parliament) at the election of June 18th, 2015 with 21.1% of the vote.[note 5] Having started out by gobbling up mainly former Social Democratic voters, the 2015 election has seen a huge influx of voters who voted for the mainstream agrarian liberal party, Venstre, in 2011.[2] One likely reason is that Venstre's leader, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, is broadly seen as a personally shady character, having let his party and other organizations pay for his own personal expenditures on things like alcohol, clothes and travels, whereas DPP leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl is squeaky clean.

↑The Danish Progress Party still exists, but is a spent political force having failed to win any national and few local seats since 1998. The party lost its last municipal seat at the local elections of 2009.

↑Just in case the party's name isn't obvious enough, it has long used the slogan "Vote Danish!"

↑This means that the DPP doesn't want to dismantle or a Danish exit from the European Union. The party even accepts the EU's internal market, just not filthy foreigners' right to steal jobs or mooch on welfare in Denmark the free movement of labor bit. Similarly, the party clamours for a reintroduction of border controls to keep out filthy foreigners criminals and illegal immigrants.

↑It's not just a coincidence that the Norwegian and Danish Progress Parties share the same name as their ideologies are or at least were broadly similar.

↑For comparison, its first election in 1998 gained the DPP 7.4% of the vote and in the 2001-2011 elections, the DPP took home between 12.0% and 13.8% of the vote.